Step 10: Alternate keys...

Extreme Geek Valentine's Day gift. Give the Fn key to your heart. Use it as a footrest and show some love to your tired doggies or else use it and pamper your significant other with a footrub. Truly functional and multipurpose. Yeah, you could buy this thing with $$$ but the best gifts are made with love XOXO.

This is made entirely from recycled box cardboard. Be good to Planet Earth.

WARNING: This seating device has not been tested with IKEA's repetitive sitting test to conform to any industry safety or durability standards and has not determined what the maximum static and dynamic load capacity is. Your mileage may vary. Implement at your own risk.

Step 1: Glue, paper, scissors...

Glue
Doing cardboard projects like this requires a lot of glue. The cardboard is porous and there is a lot of area to cover. Thinning out glue with water helps with being frugal but it weakens the glue. I used about 4 small bottles of school glue. It helps to buy it in the quart size to refill the small ones.

You can search for "wheatpaste" to make a batch of homemade glue which others have used in making cardboard furniture.

Cardboard
Most cardboard furniture tends to be heavy masses of cardboard but this design gets it strength from parts tied together similar to an I-beam. The Fn computer key stool is essentially a trapezoidal box with an internal reinforcing structure. Reinforcement comes from a standing pipe with radial fins connected to the shell of the seat.

We will take thin sheets of cardboard and laminate them into a thicker and stronger material. Try to alernate the "grain" or the direction the internal corrugations are running in each layer to get the most strength just like a sheet of plywood.

The walls of the seat should be at least 3 layers of cardboard to make it sufficently stiff for a chair. The sides should not bend in when you press on it. If it does, just glue another crossgrain piece on the back to reinforce it. This could even be done with thinner IKEA cardboard box remnants, just add more layers.

It would be nice to have big perfect sheets of clean cardboard to work with but as you will see, you can piece together scraps from smaller boxes into what we need. The outside cover paper is peeled from the cardboard for use as paper mache for a smooth finish.

The cardboard needed for this project is probably about 4 or 5 medium sized Amazon shipping boxes.

Slice and Dice
You can use heavy duty scissors or a utility knife to cut the cardboard. Be careful with sharp instruments. Cut over a scrap piece of plywood or a few layers of cardboard to protect your flooring or carpet.

It may help to have clamps, a stapler, and some tape just to hold some parts together as you try to glue up the structure.

Thanks for the link CaitlinsDad, I should have known that you never get mad unlike me who loses control all the time. Get it?

We really should get an <em>fn&nbsp;</em>page for bad puns... Seriously this is no yoke, it aint punny.<br> <br> I guess I just lost control. I felt like I was out of options... Sort of like it was a command.<br> <br> I suppose I should shift my thoughts to something more important like paying off my tab at the Instructables restaurant...<br> <br> 0 well, I will return after I escape. (That last one was worse then the rest, wasn't it?)&nbsp;

<p>I didn't realize those were puns until I read the last sentence.</p>

<p>End. Just go home.</p><p>(Not a troll, more puns)</p>

<p>XD</p><p>I may Just make the &quot;Any&quot; key !</p><p>Nice I'ble; Got a laugh from me !</p>

at first sight, i thought this was made from Fn styrofoam, Fn great job on making it, i should make one of these!

Hehe, Fn A!

Get with the Fn program.<br />

Yeah Fn right....<br />

shut the Fn up!

You're Fn doing it wrong...

Fn hell!!!

this is so cool!

lol i never knew my laptop had o fn key until i saw this :)

You need to make a &quot;Ctrl&quot; version too, cos when you're sat in it, you can say you're &quot;in control&quot;... :P

You <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/gmjhowes-Managers-Command-and-Control-Seat-of-Ri/" rel="nofollow">sit in this</a> and you are in Fn control...

Love the &quot;soylent brown&quot;. LMAO!!!

Looks more like a V-19 Torrent Starfighter... http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/V-19_Torrent_starfighter

Nice !

Yup, this is pretty Fn cool.

You should make one that says &quot;Any Key&quot; (as in &quot; press any key&quot;).

They're all the same Fn key.<br />

You should make a whole keyboard of them and somehow hook them all up to work on a computer. that would rock! &nbsp;that would take a lot of paper though to make all the letters!

&nbsp;and you could hop around to type!

102 Fn pieces :)&nbsp;

Too many Fn keys to make.<br />

haha, if you were to try how many weeks or days or months do you think it would take?

Too Fn long.<br /> <br /> It took about two evenings to make. Had to wait for the glue and paint to dry. Give it a shot.<br />

don't have any much cardboard. :(

You could get all your friends (or, failing that, classmates) to make a key each.<br /> <br /> <br />

Give your students these keys as homework. LOL<br />

&nbsp;That is good Fn key advice.

&nbsp;haha, failed the first one :P. &nbsp;Ill try it...

That Fn stinks.<br />

Don't Fn knock it until you try it...oh, you were talking about not having enough Fn cardboard.<br />

Yeah! Gosh get it Fn right.<br />

I know, I wish&nbsp;i had a Fn Laptop so I could use the Fn Actual Fn Key!<br />

I have a Fn laptop-style keyboard that has the Fn key. Its Fn USB, so it works on anything.&nbsp;

&nbsp;i dont have that Fn key.

Looks like you are just Fn out of luck.<br />

<small>The Fn key usually appears on laptops to give more functionality to the keys like toggling an external and onboard display.</small>&nbsp;<small> You might not have it on a regular desktop keyboard.</small><br />

&nbsp;oh THAT key. i have a desktop, not an Fn laptop. but i know what you Fn mean now.

Thanks, it looks like you Fn figured it out.<br />

&nbsp;I think you should have Fn made a Caps-Lock button instead. Main instrument in a troll's aresnal.